computer science

Vitascan

Vitascan is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Vitascan rather than just read about it. In short: Vitascan (sometimes alternately spelled VitaScan) was an early color television camera system developed by American television equipment manufacturer DuMont Laboratories. Development began in 1949 and the product was released on an experimental basis in 1956.

Key takeaways

Vitascan belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Vitascan to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Vitascan from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Vitascan (sometimes alternately spelled VitaScan) was an early color television camera system developed by American television equipment manufacturer DuMont Laboratories. Development began in 1949 and the product was released on an experimental basis in 1956. Vitascan was fully compatible with the NTSC color system, and DuMont Labs hoped the system would catch on in the television industry. However, Vitascan cameras only worked indoors, due to Vitascan being in essence a flying-spot scanner based system. The system's camera basically worked in reverse by projecting a light through the camera's lens onto the subject from a cathode ray tube, or CRT, mounted behind the lens (instead of a pickup tube like conventional television cameras), providing the "flying spot". Four photomultiplier tubes (two for red, one for green, and one for blue) mounted inside special "scoops" placed in the studio and pointed at the subject would pick up the light from the camera's CRT and produce the final image to be televised. Normally, with any flying-spot scanned system, the area between the flying-spot CRT and photomultiplier tubes (the whole studio in Vitascan's case) would have to be completely darkened, in order to prevent any other light, besides the light for the flying spot from the CRT, from interfering with the photomultiplier tubes. Darkening the whole room would make things quite inconvenient for any talent present in a Vitascan studio, but to get around this, strobe lighting was used in the studio for the aid of the talent. The strobe light, referred to as a "sync-lite" by DuMont, would light up only when the photomultiplier scoops were in the vertical blanking intervals of the video they would generate, to prevent any light interference to the photomultiplier tubes. Due to this, the system could not be used outdoors because sunlight would interfere during the scanning phase. From 1956 to 1959, Vitascan cameras were in use at independent television station WITI in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for its local TV news programs. However, the limitations of the cameras caused WITI to eventually return to monochrome cameras. The television industry never adopted Vitascan, and television stations continued to operate mostly in black-and-white for many more years. Vitascan, like earlier DuMont technologies such as the Electronicam, failed to catch on.

External links Early Television entry for Vitascan

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Vitascan

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Vitascan claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Vitascan before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Vitascan ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Vitascan

In research: Vitascan appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Vitascan in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Vitascan is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Cameras by type, DuMont Television Network, Television technology, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Vitascan outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Vitascan in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Vitascan means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Vitascan out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Vitascan in simple terms?

Why does Vitascan matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Vitascan?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Vitascan.